Since 7 am yesterday, yes, Good Friday, the renovators have been at it next door, and by 'next door' I mean 'through the party wall of this maisonette/terrace'.
Today the drilling in the party wall itself has taken the place of something I presume was a jackhammer through, as distinct from in, said wall. I'm not sure whether it's better or worse, and anyway the point is moot.
And I can't even complain, because the neighbours (who warned me and apologised in advance, bless them) put up with quite as much from me, in the way of overflowing bougainvillea, tree-roots in the vexatious shared and ancient plumbing, and, I fear, some choice language from time to time across the back fence.
In the meantime, however, the noise has recalled that post title and with it a whole lovely memory that fell into my hand like a ripe peach from the tree of the past: early 1975 and we've just bought Blood on the Tracks and I'm in the living room with the folding doors and panelling in Third Avenue listening to it for the first time and halfway through 'Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts' I sit down on the cheap ethnic rug and burst into tears of happiness.
I do this, as I recall, because the storytelling, character-drawing Dylan I remember from his very earliest years seems, after several years of going what has looked to me a little disappointingly doolally, to be back in force and even better. Which brings in its train a whole slideshow of memories of listening to that album at various times and places and reinforces my sense, as strong now as it was oh my god almost *cough*35*cough* years ago, that Blood on the Tracks is actually the best album in the entire history of the world ever and that's including Blue and The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle.
All of which reconciles me no end to the bloody noise in the wall, without which none of these lovely memories would have come to the surface in the first place. And anyway, this too shall pass.
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7 comments:
'Timing Is Everything'
(in comedy, romance, business, horticulture and publication dates; use this noisy time to play the music that's best LOUD.
Everybody happy.
Blonde On Blonde is Mr Bob's best
(but it's a crowded field).
THAT
was beautiful.
Brownie, it was the Dylan of Blonde on Blonde that I had been missing.
Been enjoying this one today - Channelling Nashville Skyline there.
I've been on a bit of baruce Springsteen jag myself recently, but it was mostly newer material. But you sent me back to The Wild, the Innocent . . . and Born to Run, and I've spent the last few days reminded very powerfully of who I was when I was 20, and I knew both of them like the back of my hands.
But that's all a little beside the point. What I wanted to say was I was completely thrown the other night by two appearances by rock royalty. The first was Lou Reed on Elvis Costello's chat show, who was just plain awful - self-involved, preening and dull, particularly in contrast to the incredibly warm and smart and just plain interesting Costello. And the other was the deeply disconcerting spectacle of Jon Stewart throwing away his entire persona to worship at the feet of Bruce Springsteen on The Daily Show. It was so out of character it's worth watching:
Bruce Springsteen on The Daily Show
I lost the original and so I bought another...
Bob Dylan arrived in the mail this week as I was leaving to visit a gal friend.
A slow drive through Provence and the spring green absorbed into my soul and was enhanced by the olive groves, scarlet poppies, black lambs and blacker ravens.
Reminiscing, I found myself lost on a back road.
Villagers turned to note that brutish mouth organ and the wound-up drummer in Jack of Hearts.
Smiling, I eventually arrived having joyfully regarded my own plum tree of memories from another quiet limit of the world.
Yes, thanks for that.
Peaches! Not plums. They were sweet anyway.
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